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30-587: At MBARI, scientists and engineers work together to develop new tools and methods for studying the ocean. Long-term funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation allows the institute to take on studies that traditional granting institutions may be reluctant to sponsor. Part of David Packard's charge for MBARI was to "Take risks. Ask big questions. Don't be afraid to make mistakes; if you don't make mistakes, you're not reaching far enough." MBARI's campus in Moss Landing

60-470: A habitat suitable for many marine life forms. The Soquel Canyon State Marine Conservation Area protects a side-branch of the Monterey Submarine Canyon. Like an underwater park, this marine protected area helps conserve ocean wildlife and marine ecosystems. While the erosion process of turbidity current erosion which once carved out the submarine Monterey Canyon is well known, the cause of

90-626: A moon pool in the center of the ship. The Western Flyer has supported ROV dives along much of the west coast of North America, from the Gulf of California to Vancouver Island, as well as around the Hawaiian islands. In December 2011, MBARI retired the RV ; Point Lobos after 23 years of service. In 2012, MBARI also retired the RV  Zephyr , which served as a launch platform for MBARI's autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). These two boats were replaced by

120-517: A new outlet and was catastrophically drained via what is now San Francisco Bay, when sediment from the former lake bed was carried out its new outlet and then down to Monterey Bay by longshore drift . Reconstructions of ancient land configurations via plate tectonic theory indicate that the canyon has moved north to its current location via the horizontal slip-action of the San Andreas Fault and would have been approximately where Santa Barbara

150-493: A single, larger boat, the Rachel Carson , which MBARI purchased in the summer of 2011. The Research Vessel Rachel Carson is able to launch both ROVs and AUVs, as well as conduct multi-day expeditions. MBARI has been a pioneer in the development and scientific use of two types of underwater robots—remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). ROVs are robotic submersibles that are connected through

180-447: A very long tether to a ship at the sea surface. They are controlled by pilots and researchers on board the surface ship. AUVs are robotic submersibles that are programmed at the sea surface and then released to collect data autonomously, with little or no human intervention. MBARI's ROV Doc Ricketts is a four kilometer depth-rated vehicle, named after the pioneering marine ecologist Ed Ricketts . ROV Doc Ricketts has been deployed from

210-651: Is a submarine canyon in Monterey Bay , California with steep canyon walls measuring a full 1 mile (1.6 km) in height from bottom to top, which height/depth rivals the depth of the Grand Canyon itself. It is the largest such submarine canyon along the West coast of the North American continent, and was formed by the underwater erosion process known as turbidity current erosion . Many questions remain unresolved regarding

240-719: Is a genus of jellyfish . The genus is monotypic with a single species recognized, Stellamedusa ventana . The species was first described in the Journal of the Marine Biological Association in 2004 by Kevin Raskoff and George Matsumoto of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute . As of February 2004, seven specimens have been observed, five off the California coast in Monterey Bay and two in

270-534: Is located near the center of Monterey Bay, at the head of the Monterey Canyon . Monterey Bay is one of the most biologically diverse bodies of waters in the world, and the underlying submarine canyon is one of the deepest underwater canyons along the continental United States. With this 4,000-meter-deep submarine canyon only a few ship-hours from their base of operations, institute scientists enjoy an advantageous proximity to this natural, deep-sea "laboratory." MBARI

300-553: Is located when both the San Andreas Fault and the Gulf of California came into being. Similar undersea canyons exist at the mouths of other large rivers around the world today, for instance, the Hudson River Canyon . As no major river lies at the head of Monterey Canyon today, it is surmised that it may have come into being when such a river did so in the past. The clues to the ancient origins of this canyon lie somewhere at

330-589: Is not open to the general public, but it has an open house once a year. Although MBARI is a sister institution to the Monterey Bay Aquarium , the two organizations have entirely separate management and funding. MBARI's current efforts span the interdisciplinary fields of ocean science, including marine biology, geology, chemistry, and biological oceanography. MBARI also develops new oceanographic research tools and techniques, as well as technology related to ocean observatories. Much of MBARI's research focuses on

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360-501: Is unusual in jellies that capture prey with their bells rather than with tentacles. The bumpy appearance that the stinging cells give to the jelly led to its common name. The species name comes from the remotely operated vehicle ( ROV ) Ventana , a deep-diving robot submarine that first recorded the jelly on video in 1990. Stellamedusa ventana has so far been observed only at mesopelagic depths, i.e. between 150 and 550 meters. At these depths, sunlight does not penetrate, but there

390-516: The Gulf of California . Unlike most medusae, they lack marginal tentacles. Specimens so far found reach almost 10 cm in diameter, which is large for a scyphomedusa . The bell is blue-white in colour. The exumbrella is white, and this and the four oral arms are covered with large nematocyst-laden projections filled with stinging cells, enabling the jelly to capture food items of a variety of sizes; it seems to prefer large prey, up to half its size, which

420-513: The Pacific Ocean where it terminates at the Monterey Canyon submarine fan , reaching depths of up to 3,600 m (11,800 ft) below surface level at its downstream mouth. It is a part of the greater Monterey Bay Canyon System, which consists of Monterey, Soquel and Carmel Canyons. The canyon's depth and nutrient availability (due to the regular influx of nutrient-rich sediment) provide

450-669: The San Andreas fault ). Recent research supports the latter due to the chemistry in iron-manganese deposits on seamounts near the Canyon indicating a sediment origin of southern Sierra Nevada or western Basin and Range. The Salinas River is thought to have been the outlet for prehistoric Lake Corcoran , which once occupied much of the Central Valley. The Upper Turbidite Unit of the Monterey submarine fan may have formed soon after Lake Corcoran found

480-490: The University of Washington Applied Physics Laboratory, NASA 's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, L-3 MariPro, and Alcatel-Lucent . MBARI researchers have also made pioneering developments in the area of microbial oceanography. MBARI Postdoctoral Fellow Oded Beja and Scientist Edward DeLong were the first to discover a gene in several species of bacteria responsible for production of the protein rhodopsin , previously unheard of in

510-528: The 2 mile deep downstream mouth of the canyon in a huge sedimentary bed called the Monterey Fan. This fan appears to be far too massive to have accumulated from the modern coastal streams. Research including core sampling is ongoing. Thus far, only "recent" sedimentary cores have been obtained. The oldest cores lie deeply buried, and remain to be probed. Once these deeper core samples have been properly analyzed and traced back to their original sedimentary sources,

540-564: The R/V Western Flyer since 2009, when it replaced ROV Tiburon , which had been deployed from the R/V Western Flyer since 1997. ROV Ventana is a 1.8 km depth-rated vehicle. It was built for the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute by International Submarine Engineering according to specifications developed by David Packard and the original core group of scientists and engineers at MBARI. The vehicle

570-476: The answers to such speculations as to which river might have provided the high level of turbidity current flows which are believed to have most probably been required to carve out such a deep and long canyon, with such a huge sedimentary deposit (fan) at its mouth will all hopefully be finally resolved. 36°47′00″N 121°50′04″W  /  36.783290°N 121.834397°W  / 36.783290; -121.834397 Stellamedusa ventana Stellamedusa

600-533: The continental United States. MARS enables researchers to hook up a variety of scientific instruments such as earthquake monitors and low-light video cameras and leave them on the deep seafloor for extended periods of time. Funded in 2002 by a grant from the National Science Foundation, the MARS Observatory was developed through a collaborative effort by MBARI, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ,

630-405: The development and use of robotic vehicles and other automated methods for gathering information in the ocean. These tools provide a unique view of ocean life and physical phenomena. MBARI's flagship research vessel is the RV  Western Flyer , a 35.6-meter (117-foot) small water-plane area twin hull (SWATH) ship deploying the remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) Doc Ricketts , through

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660-523: The domain Bacteria. First developments in several areas of metagenomics have also been made at MBARI. DeLong was among the first to use metagenomics in the ocean and MBARI Scientist Alexandra Worden led the development of eukaryotic targeted metagenomics, which allows specific eukaryotic cells to be selected from natural samples and partial genomes from those uncultured cells then sequenced, assembled and analyzed. In 2001, MBARI scientists and engineers detected

690-549: The exact nature of its origins, and as such it is the subject of several ongoing geological and marine life studies being carried out by scientists stationed at the nearby Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute , the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories , and other oceanographic institutions. Monterey Canyon begins at Moss Landing, California , which is situated along the middle of the coast of Monterey Bay , and extends horizontally 95 mi (153 km) under

720-429: The great depth and length of this canyon, obviously carved out millions of years ago, and the unusually large size of the sedimentary deposit (fan) at its underwater mouth 95 miles West of Monterey, have all been a cause for some speculation. Typically submarine canyons of this depth and length which cut so far across a continental shelf, and with such large sedimentary fans attached, are only formed when aligned to receive

750-604: The mission. Dorado -class AUVs currently operational at MBARI include the upper-water-column AUV, the seafloor mapping AUV, and the imaging AUV. The core vehicle elements are deep-rated (the mapping AUV is 6,000 meters rated) and have been operated as long as 20 hours. MBARI's Tethys AUV, also called the long-range AUV, is a new AUV designed to operate over longer ranges. Tethys is 30.5 cm (12.0 in) in diameter, 230 cm (7.5 ft) long, and weighs 120 kg. Tethys provides capabilities falling between existing propeller driven AUVs, which typically have endurances on

780-602: The more notable species first described by MBARI researchers include Stellamedusa ventana (bumpy jelly), Tiburonia granrojo (big red), Chaetopterus pugaporcinus (pigbutt worm), and the Osedax species of bone-eating worms. Bruce Robison was also the first to observe the transparent head of the barreleye fish Macropinna microstoma . In 2008, MBARI deployed the Monterey Accelerated Research System (MARS)—the first deep-sea cabled observatory offshore of

810-765: The onset and development of a harmful algal bloom (HAB) using the Environmental Sample Processor (ESP)—an undersea, robotic DNA laboratory. Using the ESP, researchers are able to conduct molecular biological analyses remotely, in real-time, over a sustained period, and with interactive capability. The ESP provides in situ collection and analysis of water samples, such as the analysis of the genetic material of marine microorganisms in seawater. 36°48′08″N 121°47′17″W  /  36.80221°N 121.78803°W  / 36.80221; -121.78803 Monterey Canyon Monterey Canyon , or Monterey Submarine Canyon ,

840-419: The order of a day, and buoyancy-driven vehicles (gliders) that can operate for many months. In October 2011, Tethys spent 24 days at sea traveling nearly 1,800 km. Frequent forays with remotely operated vehicles to the deep Monterey Canyon have enabled MBARI researchers to discover new animal species on a regular basis, and to begin to understand their significance in the ecology of the deep sea. Some of

870-735: The outflows of very major rivers, such as the Mississippi or the Amazon, and such canyons are not typically found in alignment with relatively low flow rivers such as the Salinas River . The dominant theory is that it is the remnant outlet of a larger river that may have once drained the Central Valley , possibly even via the Los Angeles Area Catchment Basin (recalling that the canyon has steadily moved northwest due to fault action along

900-500: Was delivered in 1988 with a standard suite of instruments and cameras. Data collection sensors, a high definition camera, and animal collection devices have been added over the course of more than 3,600 dives. In addition to ROVs, MBARI has also developed untethered undersea robots called autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). MBARI's Dorado -class AUVs are 53.3 centimetres (21.0 inches) in diameter and can be as short as 2.4 meters (7.9 feet) or as long as 6.4 meters (21 feet), depending on

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